View full sizeMotoya Nakamura/The OregonianAfter 9/11, Sgt. Maj. Jerry Glesmann of the Oregon Army National Guard fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan. "Combat changes everybody," he says.

The images are shaky and blurred, but the sounds thunder all too clearly: explosions, shouting, grunts. The camera swings wildly from earth to sky as the air erupts in gunfire.

For 10 months in 2008, Jerry Glesmann fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, a war only 9/11 could have provoked. The desert setting was biblical, but the bombs and bullets were the latest in modern weaponry. Glesmann and 16 other Oregonians in the Tigard-based 41st Brigade Combat Team of the Oregon Army National Guard spent part of that time battling narcotics in Helmand province, the world's largest opium-producing region. Their operating base, named Tombstone, was remote -- the last base before no-man's land.

Beaverton filmmaker Gary Mortensen captured the Oregonians' nightmare using gritty video caught on soldiers' camera phones during warfare to create a harrowing film called "The Shepherds of Helmand." Their unit is one of the most decorated in Oregon National Guard history.

Glesmann is one of 8,873 soldiers in the Oregon Guard who have deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq since 9/11. A total of 148 service members with ties to Oregon or southwest Washington have died since then.

In the past eight years, Glesmann, 45, who grew up a shy, lanky kid in Silverton and is now a strapping father of three boys ages 12 to 22, has also helped victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and trained peacekeepers in Mongolia. He saved a life, maybe two. He took shrapnel in his right elbow. He has seen soldiers curl up on the ground and rock back and forth and others run straight at the enemy.

Buddies call him "The Rock" because he is steady under fire.

Now a brigade operations sergeant major, Glesmann says 9/11 changed the careers of anyone in uniform.

"If you were a military person, you knew there was going to be a military response. You just didn't know the size of it."

Glesmann endured one of his darkest hours when a vehicle in his convoy hit a bomb, destroying the vehicle and gouging a crater 4 feet deep. Glesmann rescued one man and saved another by turning him on his side to protect what turned out to be a collapsed lung. Another friend died.

Back home, Glesmann slept the first few nights in his truck, needing to be alone.

Glesmann received the Bronze Star, Combat Infantry Badge and Army Commendation Medal. A Purple Heart is pending.

"Combat changes everybody," he says in a quiet voice. "It gives you a new outlook on life: 'Wow, time out, life is short.' I realized that I need to try to experience as much as possible and that having someone that truly loves you is more important than thousands that just appreciate you. It's made me want to enjoy life more."